Value-Based Anesthesia, An Issue of Anesthesiology Clinics

How society will pay for health care is an issue that deserves attention. For example, according to the US Congressional Budget Office the federal deficit is on an unsustainable fiscal path leading to crushing deficits in coming decades mostly due to soaring federal expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid. The projections are that if healthcare costs continue to grow as rapidly over the next four decades as they did over the past four decades, Medicare and Medicaid would rise from 4.5 percent of the economy today to 20 percent by 2050. In fact, their budgets would equal the entire size of the federal government today. Many observers have noted that the federal government is increasingly becoming a health insurance firm with various different side businesses. This issue of Anesthesiology Clinics explores the relationship between the costs of anesthetic management strategies and the value of this care as reflected by patient outcomes and satisfaction. The goal is to provide a viewpoint from a variety of anesthesia subspecialties as to how to provide the best patient outcomes at the lowest practical costs. This includes administrative and organizational support for an efficiently functioning operating room.